Fraud involving the workers' compensation insurance program is one of the fastest-growing crimes in San Diego County.
This type of crime can occur in two ways when an employer does not provide the required insurance or when employees fake a disabling injury to collect benefits.
At the state level, this type of fraud costs $4 billion a year, according to the San Diego County District's Attorney's Office.
Workers' comp fraud cases jumped 24.5 per cent in California last year, while they spiked 40.5 per cent in the county.
That's why the district attorney's office conducted a public awareness campaign to alert both employers and employees of the consequence of committing fraud. Representatives spoke at community forums, businesses and chambers of commerce across the county.
In the fiscal year 2010-2011, around120 people were prosecuted for committing this type of fraud in the county, of which 87 were accused of misdemeanors and 33 faced felony charges.
Among them were 25 people who were charged with lying on their workers' comp applications and 87 employers who did not insure their workers.
"All businesses that have at least one employee or more are obligated to provide workers' comp for them," said Jesse Navarro, a spokesman for the District Attorney's Office.
He said the only exceptions are when the workers are independent contractors or the employer works with members of his family.
About the latter, he said that many employers abuse this exception and falsely claim that their workers are family members when they are not.
He emphasized the District Attorney has made it a priority to crack down on these employers so all workers in the community who qualify have access to this benefit.
He said that employers guilty of violating the law face stiff fines – up to $10,000 per uninsured worker – or even have their businesses closed.
Last fiscal year, authorities closed nearly 100 businesses in the county for failing to provide workers' comp insurance to their workers, primarily restaurants and construction firms.
"The problem is that many employees don't know that they don't have this insurance until something happens to them," Navarro said.
"At times, the boss offers them cash so the employee doesn't report the injury, making the problem even worse," he added.
He said it's very common for workers not to report these types of crimes to authorities because they fear they will lose their job. An estimated 50 per cent of these crimes go unreported for this reason, he added.
Meanwhile, some workers abuse the workers' comp system by faking a disabling injury to collect benefits.
During their time off, some look for another job while collecting insurance payments or simply don't work, Navarro said.
"When a boss suspects a certain worker, he immediately hires an investigator," he said.
"In many cases, he finds that his employee is already working for someone else or is surfing, carrying heavy things, when they were supposedly injured."
He said this type of fraud represents an annual economic loss in the county of more than $22 million.
Alexandra.mendoza@sandiegored.com
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Know your rights
The state government provides information about the workers' compensation system in the site www.dir.ca.gov [/sidebar]
